Rex Murphy on Obama’s war against Christianity: When the Church struck back

The American administration is headed by a man who, when he wishes, makes a good deal of his Christianity. Churches, one in particular, used to matter very much to Barack Obama indeed. He made his first real move as a politician by choosing an appropriate church in Chicago — Obama walked into politics through its front door.

Nonetheless, we have just seen the most vivid example in some time how little regard the progressive Obama has for the rights of churches and religion, and the associated imperatives of conscience and worship.

There has been a raging storm in the U.S. for several weeks over a provision of Obamacare that compels the nation’s many Catholic hospitals, universities and other institutions to fund sterilizations, contraceptives and morning-after pills for their employees, despite each of these being fully athwart fundamental Catholic doctrine on sexuality, abortion and life.

Related

It is rather difficult to understand how a White House, facing re-election while burdened with an ailing economy, could have made so egregious a blunder as to deeply offend the moral and religious sensibilities of so many. Why would they risk opening a new and significant front — freedom of religion and conscience — for the Republicans to mount fresh attacks upon?

The administration achieved something astonishing with this blundering intrusion: They awakened the moral fervour and courage of the institutional Catholic Church and its bishops. The bishops almost instantly (and they say the age of miracles is past!) hit back. As opposed to the usual euphemistic blather and fuzzy words that issue from the Catholic hierarchy in times of tension, on this issue they were clear and defiant: “[Obama] is denying to Catholics our nation’s first and most fundamental freedom — that of religious liberty. We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.” No equivocation there. Not this time.

How did such a thing happen? How did the White House decide that it was a good idea to force Catholic institutions to pay for contraception and reproductive health-care services that the Church abhors? Perhaps America’s current Caesar sees no wisdom beyond his own. Anything that might impede the full implementation of Obamacare is to be dismissed, full stop.

He should have thought better of dismissing this criticism. His progressivism has finally collided with something that it cannot easily ignore, belittle or evade. Nothing less that the great guarantee of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the free exercise of religion, now stands in his way.

Still, for an entire week, the White House stuck to its guns. Few things are as precious to the progressive mind as their dogma concerning sexuality and birth control. I suspect within the White House they may initially have seen the mounting backlash from the Church as confirmation of how right they really were. After all, if men in church pulpits, and those who “cling” to religion were against them – well, then, this had to be right.

Finally, though, the volume of the angry shouts seems to have gotten through to them. When even noted Obama-worshipper (and MSNBC host) Chris Matthews began to fume about this measure, warning it could provoke “civil disobedience,” the White House must have known it had pushed too far. And so on Friday, there was the beginning of a comedown — responsibility for payment for the birth control and other services will now fall on the insurance companies directly, and not the Catholic institutions themselves.

It remains to be seen if that will be enough to extinguish this controversy — it certainly won’t be enough to undo the damage already done. All in all, the controversy has been an instructive one — as a glimpse into the smooth, untroubled complacencies of the caring and superior secular mind, it is without many parallels.

National Post

Rex Murphy offers commentary weekly on CBC TV’s The National, and is host of CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup.